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Six
months later: Physiotherapy unit, University College Hospital, Euston Road,
London

“I am really impressed with your
progress Chinyere,” said Brianna,
her physiotherapist. “You have gone from almost completely immobile to fully
mobile and active. Your will to live is an example for all to follow. Good
job,” she effusively praised Chinyere who had stuck to her recovery exercise
regimen religiously since being discharged from hospital. “Thanks Brianna. I
couldn’t have done it without you.” “No, it is all thanks to you.” They were
standing by the gym entrance, having completed their exercise for the evening.
“So, see you by next week. The way you are going, you have only a few more
sessions before you stop seeing my face.”

“I will always drop by to say hi. You
have really given me a lot of inspiration Brianna.” “I am flattered.” “That’s
the truth.” “Thanks Chinyere. I would love to see you any time. By the way how
is Gabriel doing?” “It has been a much rougher journey for him. He is in
Nigeria now, but he should be in London in less than a week for his next round
of surgeries. There is so much to fix all over his body, so we have no idea how
long it is going to take before he is in a decent shape.” “That must be very
hard. Send my regards to him please.” “I will.” They hugged, and Brianna
returned to the gym while Chinyere headed for the bus stop. She clutched her
bag and walked quickly to the bus stop. She was only a stone’s throw from
King’s Cross St. Pancras, a place that held scary and sad memories for her. She
had not been back to the station since the attack.

“There she goes.” “Are you sure it is
her?” “I am positive. I have watched her for weeks now. That is the girl they
brought into our office to help the sketch artist generate a drawing of Abdul. I cannot be seen here, you know,
so I have to run now. The rest of the job lies with you. She must die.
Remember, she must not live because if she does, she will point fingers at
Abdul in court and Abdul might in turn point fingers at us all. Get the job
done with your boys; quietly and neatly.” “We know how to go about our job Mahmud.” “Okay Sharaf. I am off now.”Mahmud headed briskly in the opposite direction towards Baker Street.
Sharaf walked quickly towards the bust stop. He stood a short distance away
from Chinyere. Her bus arrived, pulling up in front of British Library. In
typical British fashion everyone on ground waited for passengers to alight
before they hopped onto the bus. Chinyere heaved a sigh of relief on getting on
the bus. The winter cold was biting bitterly outside while the bus was well
heated. She climbed the stairs to the upper deck and tucked into an empty seat
by the window. She took out a novel and sank herself into it. She alighted at
Shepherd’s Bush bus stop and walked quickly towards her building. She and
Gabriel had taken a year off school to recover from the injuries they sustained
in the bomb blast. As a result, she had moved out of the university hall of
residence to an apartment complex in Shepherd’s Bush.

I think I saw this guy on Euston Road,
she thought as she got close to her apartment building. The way he was
following her caught her attention. She slowed down in an attempt to determine
how he was going to react. In order not to spook her, Sharaf casually crossed
over to the other side of the road. There were too many passers-by, and
besides, his boys were running a few minutes late. He wanted to make sure the
job was carried out without any inhibitions. He puffed out a cascading spurt of
smoke as he crossed the road. He took another sip of his cigarette and looked
at Chinyere from the corner of his eye. Chinyere deliberately passed her
building and walked into a shop in the adjoining building. She ambled around
the shop while looking out for her stalker.

She spent a nearly ten minutes in
the shop, making sure that she had not been following by the shadowy figure in
the street. Satisfied that she had lost him, she carefully stepped outside and
scanned the street for a moment before heading back towards her building. When
she got to her building, she slowed down and looked around again. She did not
notice anything out of the ordinary, so she pushed the heavy door open and
walked in. She ran up to the first floor, opened her apartment quickly, ran in
and locked the door securely behind herself. She only turned on the table
lights and then went to the window and peered into the street. To her shock, he
was standing downstairs letting out a jet of thick smoke out of his mouth and
nostrils. He was talking hurriedly to another young man. They appeared to be
pointing in the direction of her apartment. She turned off all the lights, and
continued watching them. Then, she took out her phone and dialed Chief Constable Daniel Briggs. He was
her contact officer at Scotland Yard.

Months ago she had told the police that
she remembered what the young man who might have set off the bomb at King’s
Cross looked like. On regaining her memory, she remembered the man who had
suspiciously left a bag at the station and walked away, just before the blast
went off. The suspect, Abdazari Eiman
had been careful to obscure his face with a hood before heading up the flights
of the station where CCTV cameras would have revealed his face. But that was
not before Chinyere had caught sight of him. With her help, a composite sketch
of the Abdazari was drawn, which later led to his arrest in Birmingham. “In
case you have any problems or should anything further come up, do not hesitate
to call me, the Chief Constable had encouraged Chinyere throughout the
investigation. With the matter in court, he called often to check on Chinyere
who was due in court in less than two weeks to give her testimony against the
Abdazari.

“Sir, I think my life is in danger,” she said in a low tone. She
could barely control her breathing. Her chest was pounding non-stop. “What do
you mean Miss Okonkwo?” Chief Constable Briggs asked curiously. “I was followed
home from the hospital tonight. I am certain of that. As I am talking to you,
there are two men standing in front of my apartment building pointing at my
apartment. There are three of them now. No, there are four…five of them now.”
“Miss Okonwko, stay on the phone. I am sending a SWAT team to your apartment
immediately. Is your door locked?” “Yes, but if they want to break in, my door
can only offer little resistance to them, from what I can see.” She pushed the
curtain further to her right, and that was when she realized there were seven of
them. There is no way I am going to escape this unscathed, she thought
frightfully. “Sir, I am getting out of here. There are many of them. I think
they are coming towards into the building now.” Her hands shook as she spoke.

She turned off her phone to keep it from
ringing and ran into her bedroom. In less than a minute, she heard a loud bang
at her door. Her heart was beating as loud as the bang that she feared her
assailants would hear it. Her hands were sweating profusely despite the fact
that it was minus 10 degrees Celsius in London. Waves upon waves of sweat sped
right across her forehead. Bang!!! She heard her door break open. Like jet
fighters, they sped into her apartment. They had kicked their way in. They
flipped the lights on and shut the door behind them. She could hear them
ransacking hr apartment riotously. Doors opened and slammed shot in quick
succession. They turned the apartment inside out but there was no sign of her.
“Did we hit the wrong apartment?” A voice asked anxiously. “I swear I saw
shades of light come on in this apartment as soon as she climbed upstairs.
Sharaf answered. Let’s leave this place now,” another voice suggested. “But she
would know that we are after her. We have to finish this off,” Sharaf insisted.
A heavy drop of sweat journeyed hastily from Chinyere’s forehead to her chin
before taking a dangerous dive downwards. As soon as the sweat hit the inside
of the ceiling, her heart sank into her mouth. She was sure they had heard it.
Some weeks ago she had found a loose ceiling in her bedroom while cleaning.
Instinctively, she had climbed on top her cupboard after frantically kicking
her shoes off, and then shifting it aside to into the tiny space between the
roof and the ceiling.

“Wait!” Sharaf shouted. One of his colleagues
stationed in the hallway peeped in and asked, “Why is a simple job like this
taking this long?” “Wait Mustafa!”
Sharaf yelled at him. He was sure he heard something but he couldn’t tell where
it came from. “Did you check the storage room well?” He asked. “Yes, I did.”
Then, they heard police sirens from a distance. “They might be coming here, you
know.” “Police sirens are an everyday event in London, man. Stop panicking like
a chicken” Sharaf dismissed his colleagues warning. He went to the small storage
room and made sure nothing was left unturned. “Sharaf, we think the police are
here,” one of his men shouted from the hallway. Quickly, they descended the
hallway.

As soon as they opened the door downstairs, gun shots rang out.
Chinyere nearly fell from her tiny hiding spot. The shots were loud. She could
not tell who was shooting who. She held tight, latching onto wooden beams with
shaky hands. Then, she heard shouts and groans, which were quickly followed by
pounding footsteps running back upstairs. There were more gunshots. The
normally quiet neighborhood was thrown into fear, shock and chaos for a few
minutes, which seemed like eternity. Then, she heard footsteps in her
apartment. She remained silent. Her palms were sweat-covered, and her chest was
rumbling like a fierce storm. “I hope to God she is not hurt,” a voice said. It
was Chief Constable Briggs. “I am up here,” she yelled. He heaved a sigh of
relief. “I had feared the worst. We came as fast as we could.” “I snuck in here
and thankfully, they did not find me.” They helped her down and took her to a
secure house with a tight security.

“Miss Okonkwo, do you see the person who
left a bag containing the bomb that exploded at King’s Cross St. Pancras
Station on July 7 2005 in this courtroom?” The lawyer for the Crown asked.
“Yes.” “Please could you point at him for clarity?” Chinyere raised her face
and looked in Abdazari’s direction for the first time. He looked up too. His
face was expressionless, completely devoid of emotion. She recalled the moment
when he had dropped the bag, just a short distance from where she had been
standing with Gabriel. Rage rushed through her as she recalled her months of
therapy. She thought of the fact that he had to take a year off school to
recover from the injuries. She thought of Gabriel, who was still far away from
recovery. Earlier that morning she had been with Gabriel. His last two
surgeries went well, but he was feeling woozy after all the medication he had
to take. The burns he had sustained were deep, leaving gulfs on her face, legs,
back, and arms.

They were staying together in a hidden, quiet house in Surrey
with expansive security. He had managed to open his eyes and look at Chinyere
who was running around the house in a frenzy making breakfast before leaving
for court. “Are you sure you still want to do this Chiichii,” he had asked. “Of
course, I want to. I am not going to be frightened into recoiling from my
promise. I owe this to myself; to us for what has been taken away from us, most
of which we may never recover. I am a little apprehensive, but I am going
through with this even at gun point.” He managed a weak smile in recognition of
her courage. “I just wanted to make sure you were clear about this. If you feel
you are doing this for me at any point, please stop. Do it because you want to
go to court and testify against what you are morally and rationally convinced
is reprehensible.” “That is my ultimate motivation, but I can’t help but look
at you, completely defaced and shattered into…” She paused to gather her
emotions and fight back tears.

“You are the first man I have ever
fallen in love with, and I have always believed that love is not just about
aesthetics – it goes beyond how we look, which is the reason I am still in love
with you. I know your heart; the heart that led you through that raging inferno
to save me, but I can’t help but wonder what might have been. When I look at you,
my heart bleeds for what you have been through since that terrible day. You try
to hide your pains. You don’t ever complain, but I can see you pains Gaby. I
see the bruises that mercilessly stomp on your face callously, and I wonder how
much pain and agony you are carrying on the inside. I am testifying in court
today not just because I know it is the right thing to do, but because I know
you deserve to be heard. You cannot stand in court and testify because of your
health, but I am going to testify so that your story and mine will not become
statistics. We are people with names, aspirations, hopes, desires and dreams,
and to have those cut short hurts. People should hear our story, so I am going
to testify for that, among other reasons.” Gabriel cracked another feeble
smile. Behind his smile was a deep slow-moving abyss of pain. He wanted to get
up and hug her…kiss her and tell her how much her loved her, but his legs were
still too patched up, so he remained in bed. Besides, most of his face was
tucked away behind heavy band aids after the surgery. “I am sure you are doing
the right thing Chiichii.” “I know I am sweetheart,” she replied and went back
to her early morning chores.

As she stared at Abdazari, her fear melted
away. She held her shoulder up and pointed straight at him. “He was he one that
left the bag that caused the explosion.” “Thank you Miss Okonwko, the lawyer
said. Abdazari’s lawyer tried all the tactics in the book in an attempt to
shoot holes into Chinyere’s testimony, but she maintained her ground
fearlessly. All long, Abdazari stared at her with a horrific smirk on his
face.When court adjourned for the day,
a heavy police security shepherded Chinyere out of the courtroom through a back
door. Their friends from university, Ayo, Okechukwu, Zainab, Ikenga and Ayeni sat in the courtroom, proud of Chinyere’s resilient and brave
performance in the witness box. They had not been able to talk to her nor
Gabriel since the attempt on her life, to avoid any security breaches that
might give away their location. Chinyere had seen them earlier in the
courtroom, and she smiled at them, and they smiled back.

Despite efforts to
keep the press away, there was a deluge of news reporters in the back exit
waiting for Chinyere, the star witness. The police did all they could to keep
them at bay as they rushed her to the waiting vehicle. The press kept pushing
closer, with photographers jostling to get a clear shot of her. “Stay back!”
The policemen yelled at the press. “You are not allowed this close,” they
shouted at a persistent photographer who was forcefully pressing closer.
Abruptly, he dropped his camera and lunged towards the car. A policeman went
after him and tackled him down. The man who had disguised as a press
photographer was only about three feet away from the car. Chinyere was on the
other side of the vehicle surrounded by policemen, one of whom was opening the
door for her. The assailant went to ground, yanked his suit open and pulled a
plug that was tucked underneath his suit. The policeman saw it late. Before he
could react, a massive explosion erupted, Kaboom!!! Bodies went sprawling on
the floor while objects took to the air with tornado-like force.

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